Zedd's green lasers sliced through the Carrier Dome crowd, illuminating scenes better off left in the dark: a couple sloppily making out, young men being escorted out by security, failed attempts at twerking and so on.

Back with a vengeance: high-waisted mom jorts.Katrina Tulloch | ktulloch@syracuse.com

But perhaps due to a doubled-down security deployment this year, incidents were kept to a minimum in the Dome. The plaid and neon crowd of 10,000+ students moved happily as one, pumping fists and shaking hips in high-waisted jean cutoffs.

The Block Party concert was the cherry on top of Syracuse University's annual Mayfest celebration. Last year, the university brought Ke$ha to campus and Kaskade the year before that.

Headliner Zedd wasn't chatty during his set, apart from the occasional rally cry to Get ready! and sing along to remixed hits like "I'm Coming Home," "Stay the Night" and "Clarity."

While Zedd kept people pulsating all night, Atlanta-based rapper 2 Chainz hammed it up for the SU crowd, praising the Dome and mocking students for dressing in tank tops for 50-degree temperatures.

2 Chainz likes scolding his audience and audiences like being scolded by 2 Chainz.

"Let me tell ya'll something, Syracuse. Ya'll f---ed up my bracket."

He repeated that three times, but big cheers kept drowning him out.

2 Chainz also called out several late arrivals stumbling into the Dome six songs deep.

"You coming late to my show too?" he yelled. "Tell them the rules, Syracuse: Come in. Sit down. Turn up."

His black and white T-shirt read "CEASE" but his thick gold chain (singular) covered up the E and A with the U-shaped loop. A subtle message to Cuse? Maybe I read too hard into his wardrobe selection, or maybe I stood too close to the swirls of marijuana smoke rising from the dance floor crowd.

Performing hits like "I'm Different," "Riot" and "Birthday Song," 2 Chainz easily greased the crowd for the night's main attraction.

Before 2 Chainz, Los Angeles-based DJ Brazzabelle opened the show for about 2,000 people. Dressed like an ice dancer in glittering black velvet, Brazzabelle grinned and bounced through her 25-minute set, but made zero eye contact with her crowd. 2 Chainz made better eye contact, and he wore shades the whole time.

Russian-German EDM DJ Zedd was a solid Block Party headliner. Students unfamiliar with Zedd didn't expect him to take the stage when he did. The stage didn't look ready.

When Zedd's bobbing silhouette appeared between two massive LCD screens, it became clear this wasn't just some kid behind a Macbook.

Zedd is a light-and-sound experience, eerily similar to flying through an old video game or Microsoft screen saver. 3D Pipes?Mystify Your Mind? You remember those. It's bright enough to warrant sunglasses for the full two hours.

Zedd's mechanical whirring and pounding created a construction yard effect difficult to explain to anyone who writes off EDM as just noise. But there's a spectrum of quality EDM, and Zedd edges close to the maestro range, along with Skrillex and Tiesto.

In a role reversal of last year's train wreck, in which the openers far outshined the headliner, the 2014 show upped the energy as the night progressed, retaining the majority of the crowd for the full concert.